Why Outlander Took a Huge, Emotional Departure from the Books

This post contains frank discussion of Season 4, Episode 7 of Outlander, titled “Down the Rabbit Hole.” Proceed with care.

The ongoing saga of Claire and Jamie Fraser takes a back seat this week on Outlander. Instead, the episode is primarily centered on their daughter, Brianna (Sophie Skelton), as she travels back in time to make her way through the wild and unpredictable world of 18th-century Scotland. (The episode’s title, “Down the Rabbit Hole,” places Brianna pretty firmly in the confused-yet-courageous Alice in Wonderland role.)

Skelton’s character has been on the periphery of the show for some time, but as she moves closer to the center of the action, Outlander will take clever strides to make sure audiences are along for the ride. This week, the smartest thing the show did was to bring in dear, departed Frank Randall (Tobias Menzies) via a series of flashbacks and one showstopping ghostly appearance to deliver a series of emotional gut-punches. It’s a wild departure from the book, but one that deepens and enriches Brianna’s journey enormously. Skelton spoke with Vanity Fair about the show’s big change.

Up until “Down the Rabbit Hole,” Skelton and Menzies had only shared one scene—in Season 3. That was all viewers had to go on if they wanted to understand the bond between adult Brianna and the man who lovingly raised her, despite not being biologically related to her. “Brianna and Frank can be a little bit misunderstood,” Skelton said of the way these two characters—who both somewhat stood in the way of Jamie and Claire—have been treated by the fandom in the past. The TV adaptation is endeavoring to correct that fan reaction.

In a series of scenes that flesh out the steps that lead to Claire and Frank’s final blowup in Season 3, we find out that Frank had a copy of that infamous 18th-century obituary. So he knew that Claire and Jamie would eventually reunite and that he would be left alone. We also know that he asked Brianna to come back to the U.K. with him after his fight with Claire and that she shut him down in the very same car he would crash later that night. Knowing this adds several layers of weight and poignancy to Frank’s final episode, and to his last fight with Claire. In this scene, he knows for certain she will eventually leave him.

Being certain about Claire’s future fate is not something Frank has in the books—but the adaptive choice makes his Season 3 threat to leave Claire to feel both wounded and noble. It’s his way of finally getting out of her way once and for all. Last season was very good about giving Frank’s side of the story more weight than the books had room for, but still, the tension of the show at that point was hinged on whether Claire would ever get back to Jamie. Now that the Frasers are reunited, the show has even more space to give to Frank in his final days.

In the books, Frank does have information he keeps secret from Brianna and Claire—he finds out Jamie survived the Battle of Culloden, and instead of telling them, he (strangely) has Reverend Wakefield erect a headstone for Jamie near Black Jack Randall’s, in the hopes that visiting it would someday prompt Claire to tell Brianna who her real father was. It’s a twisty bit of narrative, and one that producer Maril Davissaid last year they would likely leave out of the show:

We all find that confusing, I love [author Diana Gabaldon] and I
hope she won’t be mad at me—but it seemed really crazy that Frank
would lay that headstone, and what does that mean? . . . But we did still
feel like, though, Frank would have been looking for Jamie and would
have wondered what happened to him and tried to figure that out, so
that is something we want to play.

We now know that the show decided to swap in this straightforward, show-invented obituary plot for the confusing headstone one. And, of course, Frank is still keeping crucial information from Claire. Though Skelton has appeared in several episodes of Outlander, she says the chance to finally work at length with Menzies—something she didn’t think she’d get to do—was a “proper introduction into Outlander.” The scenes they shared, she said, were among her favorite she’s filmed in the show, and her performance really does spark to life during them.

The Brianna-Frank scenes not only help enhance past episodes of the show but also set the stage for the future. Though she’s on her way to meet her biological father, Brianna is not ready to give up the memory of the man who raised her—and is as much a Randall as she is a Fraser. By contrast, the section of the book where Brianna finds herself on the dock on the way to America is not so backward-looking, but is focused on Bree’s quick bond with her new family (the Murrays).

Meanwhile on the show, in one of the more affecting exchanges of the entire series, Frank appears briefly in his 1960s togs amidst the bustling 18th-century dock. Brianna, nervous to travel across the ocean and face all the mysteries waiting for her there, sees her dad in the crowd and we, as viewers, instantly recall his encouraging words to her earlier in the episode about soldiering on despite adversity.

Tobias Menzies—ever the master of the silent, final exchange—has ghost Frank both give Brianna an encouraging, smiling nod, as if to say “you can do this,” and heave a painful sigh, as if to say, “it’s hard letting go of you, and I know it’s hard for you to let go as well.” It’s closure and a proper goodbye for a family that never got one. Those last, wordless father-daughter looks—which Skelton plays beautifully—are also open to audience interpretation.

As for Skelton, she notes that this heart-wrenching farewell may spell trouble for Jamie Fraser. “I know a lot of people want a quick fix and a sort of reunion between Jamie and Brianna,” she said. “But I think people have to remember that Frank really did raise Bree and he did a very good job. There’s that guilt she feels going back. She feels like she’s betraying him.”

Taking this adaptive leap was a huge risk for the show, given that Gabaldon fans don’t always take kindly to major changes to the original text. But it’s to everyone’s benefit when the world around Jamie and Claire gets a little richer. The scenes with Frank also give viewers a much better understanding of Brianna’s fears, regrets, and losses. We are with her, emotionally, as she sets sail for America—and while Skelton said this is her favorite episode of Outlander to date, she’ll have much more to do once Brianna touches down in the brave new world of America.